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St. Augustine grandmother charged with child abuse

St. Augustine police have charged a local woman with abusing her granddaughter.

Debra Ann O’Sickey, 52, of Gaines Road is being held in jail on $10,000 bail after police recently arrested her on a child-abuse charge.

The grandchild, whose age was not revealed, was at Webster Elementary School when school staff noticed the young girl acting withdrawn. She told them her back hurt and a nurse discovered bruising up and down her back.

The child said she’d been hit with a belt, police said. O’Sickey told the child’s mother she fell on a toy.

O’Sickey was recently in the news as the grandmother of another child who nearly drowned in a pond after disappearing from her care.

That incident occurred last month at Florida 16 and Kenton Morrison Road, when 2-year-old Dixie Wallace was rescued by an uncle. She was initially in a medically induced coma but went home recently after making significant progress, police said.